


Can't We Meet In The Middle

by Staymay5



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ben's not doing so well, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Post TLJ, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-19 02:10:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14226831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Staymay5/pseuds/Staymay5
Summary: Rey struggles to understand Kylo Ren as Kylo Ren struggles to understand good bad and their place in things. Post The Last Jedi Force Bond Fic.





	Can't We Meet In The Middle

**Author's Note:**

> Another quick one. Unbeta'd. This one's a stand alone... at least for now.

She’s been sitting there for twenty minutes. Neither of them says anything. She’s been watching him and he’s… well he really hasn’t been looking at anything. She worries her lip between her teeth, “what are you thinking about?”

 

There’s a swirling in his eyes as his mouth opens and closes: little puffs of air with no sound coming out, like a broken engine trying to start again. If she couldn’t feel him through the force she wouldn’t have thought he was going to answer. But she’d could feel it there: his desire to reach out… his fear he’d be misconstrued.

 

She’s been getting better at reading him. She’s not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Her fingers play with the fraying edge of her vest as she attempts to hold onto her patience, “you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

 

“It’s not that,” he says coolly his words dipping at the end. She senses his apprehension towards her, “I’m- I’m just thinking is all. I’m not exactly sure about what.”

 

“Well maybe if you tell me I can tell you what you’re thinking,” she says sheepishly as he turns his sharp eyes upon her. In times like these she wishes she was… better? She’s not sure that’s the right word for it.

 

On Jakku she was very competent. She knew a lot of things. Those things let her survive one more day. And one more day meant maybe she’d see her family again. She hadn’t ever taken the time to truthfully consider who she’d be after that. Of course, people on base thought she was pretty great. She was “the last Jedi” after all. But in moments like these… she couldn’t help but wish she was different. Better at talking, more educated, more- more like Leia.

 

Kylo’s gaze softens and he looks away again. She realizes he’d been feeling her out. He must have liked what he found because she can feel him relax, “I understand why people hate me. I’m a monster-”

 

“You’re not a monster,” she cuts him off quickly. She thought they were past this.

 

“You said so yourself,” he tries to point out.

 

“That was different,” she defends, “I didn’t- I didn’t know. I didn’t understand. Besides you killed Snoke- you don’t have to be a monster… not unless- do you want to be a monster?”

 

“I’d certainly make things easier,” he concedes, “If I’m bad and you’re good, I can understand that. It- it makes sense to me. You deserve to be happy and I deserve… this.”

 

“I don’t understand,” Rey really didn’t. Many of their conversations had gone this way, into areas beyond her comprehension. If he wanted to be good why couldn’t he just be good.

 

He’s looking at her again, the way he did in the forest, “no I suppose you wouldn’t.”

 

And just like that it’s quiet again. But Ben always feels like that dark cave, so cold and lonely and full of answers. The cave wasn’t full of answers, she reminds herself. It didn’t show her the answers she wanted. But it did give her answers, “you were saying you understand why people hate you?”

 

He nods, “don’t pretend like you don’t. The kind of person who kills their own father. Who’d want to see them redeemed? Who’d want to help them?”

 

“I want to help you,” Rey says in the softest of voices and finds she can no longer look at him. The air between them smells like smoke and death and panic and it’s a gap she doesn’t know how to cross.

 

“If I gave you my hand would you run away again?”

 

“I wasn’t running away,” she huffs. It’s only partially true, “I just had other priorities I had to take care of. As ruler of the universe you should understand that.”

 

“Supreme Leader,” he rolls his eyes and withdraws his hand, “you just make it sound ridiculous. We can hardly take car of our current occupations and you act like we’re expanding past the outer rim.”

 

“Supreme Leader sounds just as stupid,” she defends her arms crossed her feet kicking at a rock in front of her.

 

His eyes soften, and he sighs, “I suppose it does… you can’t blame me for that one though. I didn’t come up with it.”

 

“I wasn’t leaving you,” she squirms a bit, “I thought my not killing you made that obvious- I mean I didn’t think I’d be able to come back- I wasn’t really thinking of much at that moment other than how to make sure everyone got out of it alright.”

 

“That’s because you’re a good person,” he snorts, “I’d have let the whole bloody ship burn. I’d offered as much.”

 

“No you didn’t.”

 

“Yes I did, I explicitly said we should let it all die. Everything that wasn’t us.”

 

Rey stares at him for a moment and it hurts to do so when he looks at her like this. She has to remember why she didn’t give in the first time, “I don’t think that’s an option. I think- if I had gone- if we had gone through with it: I wouldn’t be Rey anymore and you wouldn’t be Ben.”

 

And then he’s back to staring out into nothing… into something she can’t see? “I’m not Ben anymore.”

 

“That’s a real shame,” Rey shrugs and looks out into her own horizon. It’s getting dark, “I thought he was someone worth saving.”

 

She wonders if he’s going to say anything to that. She can feel it again: his desire to reach out… his fear he’d be misconstrued. Back to this, she thinks.

 

“Just say it,” she finally snaps, “whatever you’re thinking it can’t be that bad.”

 

“You’re the only one who thought he was worth saving,” he says plainly holding up a finger when he sees she means to interrupt, “I can understand why people hate me, I can, but I just- sometimes I think of him: of Ben, and I just don’t understand. He tried so hard to be good, he tried so hard to do things the right way, but no one would help him… I just keep thinking why? Why wouldn’t they help him? He obviously wasn’t okay, but he wasn’t a monster. He didn’t deserve…”

 

“But you do?”

 

“I’ve earned peoples hate. He was good. What’s the point in being good when the world crushes the weak anyways,” he says softly, “I’m strong now. I don’t need their help anymore. It came at a cost, but at least I’m willing to admit that. I’m okay with being a monster, I really am, I don’t have to pretend to be riotous and good. But what about them? You think they’re so great? Did they save you from Jakku? No they let you live as a slave for a life time. Did the help Ben when he begged them to? No they sent him off to slaughter. They sat their asses on golden chairs and got fat singing songs of the rebellion while the rest of the galaxy burned. So I’m bad and you’re good and someday you’ll kill me and the cycle will repeat? Or their bad and we’re good and we kill them and then we become the bad? Or they’re good and we were always bad and- we’re bad and they are too- or I just….”

 

“Oh Ben,” tears pricked at her eyes but he didn’t stop.

 

“Grandfather was a slave. He was no one. People forget that- they forget that. They want me to be a great Skywalker or the next Vadar, but I failed at both- I couldn’t- it was supposed to stop. He’d rule the galaxy and this- it would- no one- people weren’t supposed to have to suffer anymore. Order brings justice brings freedom? Order brings violence brings war brings, I don’t even know Rey. I don’t know anymore. I just want it to stop. If I could just sleep, I’m sure it’d make sense, I could make it make sense, I could make things different. You can’t save Ben. I can’t save Ben. Ben wasn’t worth saving.”

 

“Don’t say that,” she says fiercely and her voice crack, “Ben is worth saving- you are worth saving. I don’t have the answers. I thought Luke did, but he wasn’t quite what I hoped.”

 

“I warned you he wouldn’t be.”

 

“Shut up,” she says harsher than she means to before swallowing, “good and bad? Light and dark? Does it have to be one or the either. Can’t we just meet in the middle- can’t we just not fight anymore?”

 

“And who should suffer for that decision? There will always be the powerful and the powerless. The weak and the strong. Those who suffer and those who profit.”

 

Rey can feel the thrumming of her heart, “we can fight them together, we can fight for them together, it doesn’t have to be like this. There has to be a better way.”

 

Ben closes his eyes and leans back, “there is no better way. My mother thought there was but she thought wrong. All she saw was the republic, when I was right there, I was there and I was suffering, and all she saw was another way. But her way didn’t help me and it didn’t help you so why do you keep insisting-”

 

“I’m going to save you,” Rey says fiercely, “stop counting me out. I might be late, but I’m fucking here aren’t I?”

 

“I don’t need saving, Rey,” he says frustrated pinching his nose, “I’m not a child. The things from my past can’t hurt me any longer, I’m not Ben.”

 

“But you are Ben, and they are hurting you,” she huffed moving into his space, “I think I understand. I think I do. But my parent’s weren’t bad, they did their best, it just wasn’t enough. Your parents aren’t bad, they did their best, it just wasn’t enough. And we aren’t beyond hope. Maybe we never figure it out. Maybe this is just the way things are. But I won’t let you suffer that. Maybe we’ll do better. Maybe people aren’t meant to be alone- maybe if we find a way for everything to just be, we can all find a way to be enough.”

 

“I forget how young you are sometimes,” Ben says sadly. She can already feel him pulling away, “someday you’ll understand. Someday you’ll see. I just- I need sleep. I’ll be better in the morning. I’ll be able to explain then. We can start over, clean slate, no good no bad, no anything no something. Sleep, yes, I need sleep. Tomorrow Rey.”

 

They’ve been here before. Tomorrow he’ll be just as unyielding. He’ll be just as certain that his way is the only way. But that could change. It had to change. She wasn’t looking for perfection, quite the opposite in fact. All she needed was a crack, and she knew if she could find it the light would come through. And maybe, just maybe, he’d be able to believe he was worth saving again. And when that happens, and she’s sure it will, she’ll be there… she’ll be there…


End file.
